The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that EU regulators have announced a third investigation into Microsoft's conduct on the desktop. This latest action demonstrates that while the EU has settled the case against Microsoft that ran for almost a decade, it remains as suspicious as ever regarding the software vendor's conduct, notwithstanding Microsoft's less combative stance in recent years. The news can be found in a story reported by Charles Forelle bylined in Brussells this morning.

RMS: « Microsoft consummated its corruption of the International Standards Organization, which dismissed an appeal by several countries against the approval of OOXML.

Details surface about allegations of Microsoft corruption that led to egg throwing.

The Hungarian egg thrower, whom we mentioned earlier, publicly accused Microsoft of corruption. but he did something which we do not endorse. We have stated this openly more than once before and it's worth repeating this remark about exclusion in this separate new post.

In short: ext4 users would be well advised to avoid versions 3.4.14, 3.4.15, 3.5.7, 3.6.2, and 3.6.3; they all contain a patch which can, in some situations, cause filesystem corruption. Investigation is underway.

Votes from South-eastern Europe and former Yugoslavia countries showed Microsoft's domination of that market, and especially good connections with authorities because most of the national standardization bodies voted "Yes with no comments". Just how did Microsoft get OOXML support in Eastern Europe? More corruption?

" 'Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to implement free and open industry standards,' is the message of a letter by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. To help achieve this goal, FSFE offered its support for a possible antitrust investigation based on the complaint of Opera Software against Microsoft. The complaint was based on anti-competitive behaviour in the web browser market..."

There's nothing like an EU Commission investigation to get Microsoft to open up a little, is there?

Further to this week's Microsoft Office crimes (and conviction) in Germany, the return on investment in OOXML corruption is debated